Free Fall Motion Activity, (Part-II)

Name: Nathan Cooper

1. Data Collection – for All 3 Trials

Trials Initial Height of Book &
Paper (cm)
1 100
2 100
Initial Height of Book &
Paper (cm)
3 100
Time Taken by the book Time Taken by the Sheet
to Hit the Ground (s) Paper to Hit the Ground (s)
1.0 1.6
1.0 3.5
Time Taken by the book Time Taken by the Crumpled
to Hit the Ground (s) Paper to Hit the Ground (s)
0 1.1

2. Trial 1 & 2 Paragraph

a. Trial 1.The air can't reach the bottom of the paper as the book shields it. It makes both
the paper and the book fall at approximately the same speed as the paper's air drag is
almost negligible. Additionally, when the book is falling down, the air around the book is
trying to fill up that space created by the book falling down and thus it helps the paer
sheet to fall down faster.
b. Trial 2. The air resists the falling of both the paper and the book. However, the book
itself had more mass so that it had more force to push through the air resistance in the
first place (Force = Mass x Acceleration, which does mean that more mass moving
produces more force). Whereas, the paper sheet falling independently, does not have
enough mass to overcome the air drag and has more surface area to offer more air
resistance, thus the paper sheet takes much more time to hit the ground than the book.

3. Hypothesis for Trial 3. If the paper is crumpled and dropped, it would hit the ground much faster
than the flat sheet paper since it would have same mass (as the flat paper sheet) but much less
surface area (as the flat sheet) to offer less & less air resistance. It approximately hits the ground at
the same instance as that of the book.

4. Trial 3 Paragraph. Once we dropped the crumpled paper, it exactly followed our hypothesis & hit the
ground much faster than the flat sheet paper since the surface area was much less (as the flat sheet
paer) & it faced less air resistance. It actually hit the ground at approximately the same instance as
the book itself.

Unless Otherwise Noted All Content © 2022 Florida Virtual School. FlexPoint Education Cloud™ is a
trademark of Florida Virtual School.
Unless Otherwise Noted All Content © 2022 Florida Virtual School. FlexPoint Education Cloud™ is a
trademark of Florida Virtual School.